I am currently trying to restore some wooden floors that lost their shine, what kind of cleaning mixture will help bring its shine back? I tried to vinegar and vegetable oil mixture and let it sit but it gunked up.

3 Responses to “How to bring shine back to a wooden floor?”

Hey there Matthew, I’m Blake from The Home Depot out here in California. Most modern wood floors are installed with a polyurethane high-gloss topcoat. Polyurethane replaced wax as the preferred top coat for wood. Polyurethane creates a rigid armor-like finish for your floors and protects them from scratching, staining, and water damage.

The biggest advantage that polyurethane brings to the table is longevity. Where wax would have to be rebuffed and reapplied monthly in high traffic areas, polyurethane lasts for years. The disadvantage is that when the polyurethane top coat does finally wear down, it is a more in-depth repair.

When a wood floor looks dirty no matter how much you clean it, the top coat has been worn down so that it is no longer smooth and shiny. To reapply polyurethane you will need to actually sand you existing coat off using a flooring sander and apply a new coat. This will literally make your wood floor as good as new and give you years of beautiful service.

Not all wood finishes are shiny. You need to know if the original finish is matte or gloss or inbetween because you will only be able to restore what was there. Never use vinegar on wood flooring. It is hard on the finish and will wear it down over time. First of all use a good mixture of hot water and dish soap to wash the floor. (use a dampened rag for cleaning and another dampened rag with just clear water to rinse) If there has been a wax used on the floors, then you need to strip the wax build up off to get down to the finish..you can do this with a wax stripper made for this or ammonia/water mixture will do this too. Once down to the finish, you can decide what is needed to restore the look you want.